Being nearly 10 years in practice, over the last decade, I have been able to identify some common barriers to good sex within relationships. Here is a brief blog on some common barriers I have found. If you have some of these barriers, it’s important to do the work to remove them or help limit the effects that these barriers have on your sex life.
Trauma
Unresolved and/or complex trauma is a huge barrier to good sex. It’s also a barrier to general happiness and satisfaction in life and can be one of the main sources of anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns. And any type of trauma (even if it is not sexual) can impact your sex life.
Grief and Loss
I see grief and loss as one of the main causes of sexual functioning concerns and sexual disatisfaction in a persons life. Whether active or unresolved, grief and loss appears to directly affect the sexual functioning system and it would be worth the time to resolve and do work around this.
Fear
Fear of anything, nothing, and/or everything can create a barriers to good sex. We live in a fear based society and fear is instilled inside of us from a very early age. Fear greatly affects our ability to feel safe with ourselves and partners and in the world and can be huge barriers to good sex.
Lack of Knowledge
Most people don’t feel super knowledgeable about sex and a lack of knowledge about sex can be a barrier of good sex. I encourage my clients to be “students of sex”, lifelong learners, recognizing that there is no ceiling on how much one can learn about sex. I will never stop learning about sex, and I sometimes feel like there is so much to learn about sex I will never learn it all, and this is MY profession! Sex is an never-ending journey- an EXCITING never-ending journey. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!
Lack of Experience
Experience doesn’t mean competence, but our culture often values more experience as being more competent. Lack of experience can often create a barrier to good sex, but it doesn’t have to. As mentioned above, we are lifelong students of sex. Since we have our whole lives to learn about sex, experience is all relative and quantity is not more important than quality.
Low Sexual Self Confidence
Self-esteem and self-confidence is a huge contributor to whether sex is good or not, and if you have low sexual self confidence and low sexual self-esteem, it can be a great barrier to good sex.
Body Image Issues
I generally believe that you have to feel pretty good about your body in order to want to share it with someone else. If someone doesn’t feel good about their body, they often don’t feel like sharing it with others. Body image issues can be huge barriers to good sex.
Closed Mindedness
The most common way I see closed mindness coming up is when people think that they know what sex is supposed to be like, or what their partner is supposed to be like or like. It’s this closed mindedness to the individuality and nuances of sexuality that prevents good sex from happening.
Perfectionism
Human beings and SEX is imperfect. Having a perfectionistic attitude toward life and sex is a HUGE barrier to good sex.